>>266125I wouldn't say poorly, they performed just kinda average to good. Really it depends on who was leading, where, and when they were fighting. Like Montgomery was a very average general, he wasn't good, but he wasn't necessarily bad.

>>266482the gurkhas were legendary pre ww2.I swear, all those british empirefags on /his/ don't know jackshit about the BIA which kept the empire running.>>266505>implying americans would ever stop talking if it was them fighting in the battle of imphal.

>>266173>>266163British troops were sold propaganda that the japanese force was weak and had no armoured units to keep morale up despite the government not investing any money into the armed forces there (Chamberlain bitch policies) and got imprisoned, suffered more than any other armed forces in captivity and were then told to sign official secrets act and treated as losers and cowards.

From what I've read, 2 reasons:1) We stopped every 20 minutes to make tea (not a joke)2) The American's were just stopping by England for training and giggles, for them the trip home was to go to Germany. The English however were already home, and were forced to leave to go fight ze Germans, that's gotta be pretty demoralizing.

No. "C" Force, which was hurriedly sent to Hong Kong consisted of about 1900 Canadians (mostly Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers). They were not overly trained, but MacKenzie King allowed his arm to be twisted and have them sent to prop up the HK garrison.

Despite their numbers and lack of any battle experience, they did hold out quite well against the very experienced Japanese.

As the right forward company was consolidating its objective it was suddenly counter-attacked by a troop of three Mark V Panther tanks supported by two self-propelled guns and about thirty infantry and the situation appeared hopeless.

Under heavy fire from the approaching enemy tanks, Private Smith, showing great initiative and inspiring leadership, led his P.I.A.T. Group of two men across an open field to a position from which the P.I.A.T. could best be employed. Leaving one man on the weapon, Private Smith crossed the road with a Private James Tennant and obtained another P.I.A.T. Almost immediately an enemy tank came down the road firing its machine-guns along the line of the ditches. Private Smith's comrade, Private Tennant was wounded. At a range thirty feet and having to expose himself to the full view of the enemy, Private Smith fired the P.I.A.T. and hit the tank, putting it out of action. Ten German infantry immediately jumped off the back of the tank and charged him with Schmeissers and grenades. Without hesitation Private Smith moved out on the road and with his Tommy gun at point-blank range, killed four Germans and drove the remainder back. Almost immediately another tank opened fire and more enemy infantry closed in on Smith's position. Obtaining some abandoned Tommy gun magazines from a ditch, he steadfastly held his position, protecting Private Tennant and fighting the enemy with his Tommy gun until they finally gave up and withdrew in disorder.

One tank and both self-propelled guns had been destroyed by this time, but yet another tank swept the area with fire from a longer range. Private Smith, still showing utter contempt for enemy fire, helped his wounded friend to cover and obtained medical aid for him behind a nearby building. He then returned to his position beside the road to await the possibility of a further enemy attack.

In war nobody knows who took the fatal shot. You just end up assigning the kills to whoever you feel should claim them. Eventually it becomes a company meme. The guy who gets assigned the kills is like a mascot.

Obviously that guy didn't single handedly do anything. It's just that people in his company liked him and wanted him to get a medal.

There's this guy, let's call him Jeeter. He was the worst shot in the platoon. How this man became a rifleman was anyone's guess.

Anyway, one day your slowly rollin in your humvee on a crowded street, some derka comes up strapping bombs, and nobody spots him, but Jeeter pops him in the chest, and bam he's down. Jeeter just saved the whole squad.

The next time you've got a dead derka unaccounted for, Jeeter did it. He starts rackin em up like paul bunyan. That's how it starts.

The British have always been shit at war but WWII was particularly terrible for them because of outdated tactics and equipment. The empire was too massive to support properly and the only region with manufacturing capacity was the home islands because of their monopoly system. This meant that their far off colonial troops were poorly supplied and equipped, it's why the the Japanese were able to blitz through British Asia.

>>266125They were bombed to hell. I know europoors like to say America didn't do shit in WWII but that's horrendously not true, Americans didn't do shit in WWI but that does not apply to WW2. America and the soviets basically saved Europe's ass which is what allowed them to become world powers when the war ended.

>>266271No, what they did was run away in even less than that, and needed French help even for that. Their participation literally just made the Battle of France worse. By the time France surrendered the British had all long fled to hide on their island.

There's another thing that hampered the british ability to fight in the european theather at least. These are two incidents in the book Band of Brothers, the one about the 101st Airborne, 506th Infantry regiment, E-Company:

While in the Benelux countries, forgot which (probably belgium), one E-Company soldier spots a german sniper in a church bell tower. He approaches a british tanks and request that the brit blast the bell tower to bits, to which the brit replies:

"No can do, yank, I'm under strict orders not to cause any unnecessary property damage."

The same thing happened later in the same operation, I forgot which one this was but it might actually have been Market Garden (would explain a lot):

An E-Company scout spots a tiger covered in straw in a barn lying in wait for the approaching british tanks. The american approaches the british tank commander and warns him and requests that he blows up a house that's in the way as to surprise the tiger tank and then take it out. But the british tank commander gives the same reply as in the previous encounter and simply drives on forward. Once the tiger tank has a clear line of sight, it shoots the british tank which pops open like a melon and the E-Company scout describes seeing the british tank commander, ablaze, crawling out of his tank screaming.

Karma, I guess...

Anyway, the British were already thinking of the post-war reparations, whereas the americans just wanted to win the war as quickly as possible. Guess which attitude led to better results on the battlefield?

>>267599There is no reason to try and bring politics I to this. Germans were smaller and needed to invent strategies and tactics to utilize what resources they had to avoid another WWI. And thus blitzkrieg and mobile squads centered around NCOs and LMGs, shit that all modern armies still use today.

They invented special forces/commandos and became masters of small scale raids. After General Slim took over they became very good at fighting in jungles. Matched pretty evenly in the desert and fought as well as the US after d-day.

For a nation with a military history like the UK's they still underperformed on land.

One reason is that the UK has never had a large army. Well trained and experianced but generally very small. The need to rapidly expanding to fight in world wars has meant that it's experiance and training comes very diluted with all the green recruits of the streets. A problem nations like Germany and France didn't have due to there larger standing armies, national service and systems of reserves.

Another was allocation of resources. Up until about half way through the war Britain still had the largest navy in the world. The RAF was possibly the best airforce in Europe and the amount of bombs dropped on Germany equals the effort from the US, a much larger country. This all from s nation of around 50 million. There just wasn't the resources to invest in a huge well equipped army as well.

A third point would be the effect of ww1. After that war the uk had no stomach for large losses. Conventional tactics from d day onwards where slow and careful in order reduce casualties and much effort was taken to ro tate units in order to minimise casualties. (With the uk armies regionally recruited units an extreamly bloody battle could result in a town at home losing most of its men, something which happend in the first war). Also experianced units from north Africa, Asia etc where mot used in operation overlord so that people at home wouldn't see there lived ones fight abroad for several years only to die in the last year.

Generally brit soldiers where avearage during ww2. About the same as us but not as good as Germany. Except in the sphere of special ops etc where they were the masters.

I would, however, point out that even though tonnage was comparable, the RAF's night bombing emphasis meant that their accuracy and hence damage during strategic bombardment was enormously less than that of the U.S.

Both of those two incidents are pretty much fiction based on interview with possibly bit senile veterans. Archive sources and pretty much every book based on 'em have slightly different interpretation of what actually happened.

>An E-Company scout spots a tiger covered in straw in a barn lying in wait for the approaching british tanks.

There were no Tigers in the area. German armored unit deployed north-east of Eindhoven was 107th PzBg. They were equipped with Panthers and JgPzIV's.

the SMLE carried more ammunition per magazine than any 'battle rifle' issued by either side. even the garand was two short. do not try to tell me the M1 carbine can be considered a proper rifle. it's called a carbine for a reason.

listen, you are spoiled by america's willingness to try bizarre weapons versus what fucking works. i'll admit that it was inevitable the advance to semi-automatic from bolt-action, but considering what the british were up against i'd say the SMLE was a damn fine opponent for the karabiner or arisaka.

Well overall the army had a manpower and resource shortage due to the navy and air force which had higher priority.

In the pacific specifically the british had trouble adapting to the territory. Their battle plans relied on things they just couldnt do adequately in the predominately jungle terrain. They tried drawing enemies into large clearings where they had built defenses, and in those battles they did well, but it wasnt a reliable strategy they could use often.

The british army also put a very big emphasis on the chain of command. Without the officers, the men were far less effective in solving their own problems. And of course nips always had snipers trying to pick off officers, and of course it was just harder to relay orders through the jungle.

This was in contrast to the americans greater attempt to adapt to the jungle, rather than try to avoid it, and their greater emphasis on individual initiative especially with NCO's that allowed them to "make do" when shit went wrong.

The british alson didnt have a lot of navaln and air support like the americans eventually got. When the war first started the americans didnt really do any better.

It was almost impossible for a lower class Brit to rise thru the ranks regardless of their ability, (and this wouldn't change until the 1960s) with the result that most British officers held their rank due to their family and school connections instead of skill.

>>275366That's not true to the extent you think it is. A strong nco cadre has always been important. Their were some officers and even generals who came from working or middle class backgrounds on the first world war. When you militarise ab entire generation you are going to find the better educates in officer positions.

>>273611The UK just took part in and planned more covert missions than the rest of the allies combined. The number of special units during the war was massive and caused the Germans a lot of problems. The original rangers and oss received their training from the brits and where very much the apprentice during the war.

Anecdotes from a couple of interviews say little other than the biases of the interviewie

>>277005The aristocracy and upper class took Porportionally more casualties than any other class. Something like 1/5 died compare to 1/8 for the working class. Young officers were expected to lead from the front and died very quickly

>>277935But not taking my historical knowledge from a tv show based on anecdotal evidence? (Though it was a cool show) by only trusting single sources of evidence rather than a wider approach?

Truth is conventional us and brit soldiers where about equal by the time of d-day. One had more experiance but where iverstreached and lacking in resources, the other enthusiastic amatuers who learnt very quikly and had an abundance of supplies. Both were outclassed by the whermacht. Both over do the abilities of there generals

>>278884Yes. Britain has fought more nations than anyone else and has fought more wars than any other modern state (apart from French maybe). They did very well in some wars and badly at others. Generally won though hence the empire. Rome had a pretty mixed bag too.

Have you ever read anything about Stephen Ambrose. He is historian who disregards all official records in favor of oral history... recorded decades after actual events. I'll doubt that members of easy company were lying, but their memories weren't exactly fresh after 40 years. War diaries of American, British and German units involved in action... are utterly pointless and probably best use for those is by all mean using 'em as toilet paper or fuel. Things put on paper hours or maybe a day or two at worst after the events tend to be more accurate than decades later.

Not him, but having read Fuller, he didn't really pioneer shit. Fuller's stuff is pie in the sky nonsense, a vision of war where the infantryman is completely replaced by mechanized forces and war boils down to pushing the button faster than the other guy.

German "mechanized" doctrine involved less than 10% of their divisions being armored, and using them in a support role, a hugely important support role, but a support role nonetheless, providing localized power instead of completely replacing the infantryman, who remained the core of the German force.

Well, you weren't there were you?The interviewee from the book was. Don't know why you'd lie about something like that. It's a wartime memoire and there's a shitload of fantastic stuff in it but they all claim that it's true because in war, fantastic things happen.

I do not doubt it, especially not since that mentality is repeated twice by two different soldiers in the book.

>>282897Frogs arent the only ones to despise Britain for Dunkirk, you should visit /int/.As a German, I truly despise how you guys act like you won WW2 while actually you did nothing relevant into that war aside from having your island turned in a gigantic US military base

>>283327>Ambrose is a much more credible source than you are in this particular subject.

I'm going to suggest easy way out. Accepting war diaries of 15/19th the King's Royal Hussars, 44th Royal Tank Regiment and 107th PzBg as more credible sources over Ambrose bullshit based on interviews made decades after actual events as more credible sources.

>>278884>>278972>>283732The thing is that Britain has factually never won an european war (aka not against zulus, mughals or other backward tribes) by itself.In every european war, Britain heavily relied on allies.Meanwhile, Spain, France, Russia and even Germany (if you count Prussia) won some european wars without allies

Britain has never had designs for land on mainland Europe, at least since the Medieval age. Britain always fought to maintain a certain balance of power in Europe, and in order to do this you must create alliances. As an army the British have always been pretty good and the Navy was always one of the best in the Europe.

Wartime memoirs are not infallible. Seriously, 'Death Traps' is a memoir. 'Lost Victories' is a memoir. These are recognized as being some of the most fact-light books on WWII.

Also, veterans tend to take onboard popular culture references to the conflicts they fight in as the years go on - look at all the US servicemen who encountered 'Tigers' in Normandy, even though barely any were deployed in theatre at all and almost none in the American sector.

Meanwhile in reality, America did not become the senior partner in the allies until 1944 well after the normandy landings, when they finally had enough troops actually fighting the Germans to outnumber Britain.

Everyone's idea that the US just rocked up in 1941 and was just like 'never fear, America's here' and took control when they were in someone else's country, who had been fighting longer and had a bigger stake in the game is incedibly arrogant.

The Brits were mostly responsible for the success of D-Day, doing nearly all the planning, most of the naval effort (including driving landing crafts to US beaches) and it was all commanded by Monty who didnt hand over to the politician Eisenhower until a bridghead was established.

Eisenhower commaded D-dayin the same way that the Queen commands England. He had no military experience, left all the real work to other people and was there because he was a good politician and could keep the allies together when Monty was a cunt (see him becoming Potus after the war)

>>285172>make a tank that's 300 foot tall and can only shoot forwards or right>make another tank that goes on fire if someone looks at it>use rivets, so when the tank gets hit all the crew get shot by rivets

To be fair, it has at least a little bit (often misunderstood) basis in reality.

German anti-tank doctrine said to repeatedly fire even on destroyed tanks until they burned if at all possible, if it looked like they weren't going to be in a position to stop the enemy from recovering them.

A lot of Shermans burned, not because the Sherman was particularly flammable, but because the Germans were trying to cook the ammo to make it harder to bring them back into action or to use them to fix up other Shermans elsewhere.

>>275366My grandfather, of a noble Northern Irish family, joined the navy as a soldier. His ship sunk twice (and twice did he rescue his bassoon). After that, he decided to enlist as an officer and quit moralist bullshit.

It's easy to forget because they're more equal now, but pre-industrial Britain had a third the population of France, Russia or Austria. They were about equal to middling nations like Prussia and Spain.

I was in my teens, and had written him a letter asking about SAS stuff. He invited my dad and I to visit his office at 22 South Audley Street, which we did. He was working for Shell or something at the time.

It was only later that I noticed the address spelled 22 SAS--the Territorial Army SAS unit. Not sure if coincidence.

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